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Friday, February 18, 2011

Book Review: Miscellaneous

Okay, so I haven't finished a book yet this week. (gasp!) What can I say, I've been spending my time doing things much less fun, like working my fingers to the bone at my day job, and cleaning bath tubs. Anyway, enough about my oh so glamorous life, and more about the books I'm currently reading.

Here are some mini-reviews to whet your appetite:

The Dead Tossed Waves: Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She’s content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry’s mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

Thoughts: Good so far. It's a companion novel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, which I reviewed last week. It's set in the same town as the ending of TFOH&T, but about 15 years later. Carrie Ryan has really stepped up her game in this one. She's certainly not afraid to kill her darlings!

Going Bovine: All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.

Thoughts:I love love love Libba Bray's use of similes and metaphors. Sometimes they just jump right off the page and slap me in the face. The characters are pretty awesome - so far I've met an angel who can change the color of her wings, a "little person" named Gonzo, and a talking yard gnome. I don't read novels from a male POV very often, so it's great when I can read a really well-written one.

Across the Universe: Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Thoughts:I must confess that when I first started reading this book I had a nightmare or two about being frozen. I had to lay off reading the book at night, so it's slowed my progress considerably. Now that I'm past the frozen part, I think it's safe to start reading at night again. (Or is it??)

What are you reading?

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